Jennifer Wallis (QMUL) Figure One: Ian Hislop and his many hats! Ian Hislop’s three-part series Stiff Upper Lip: An Emotional History of Britain aims to ‘[explore] emotion and identity over the last 300 years’ – or more pertinently, how (and indeed, if) we British have attempted to tame, bottle up, and alter our emotions. Screening the history of emotions may not be as straightforward as the history of surgery or of World War One, but Stiff Upper Lip is a
Read moreAuthor: lucinda matthews-jones
The Delights of “Living in” and Working in a Cardiff Department Store
Michelle Matthews (Independent Scholar) The industrial revolution has typically been characterised as separating home from work. Yet as the BBC drama ‘The Paradise’ shows, home and work merged in the department store with shop assistants often living over the shop as part of their employment term. Fondly known as ‘Living in’, this practice played a crucial role in the recruitment of staff in a number of professions during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the department store it functioned as
Read moreHobsbawm’s Nineteenth Century: An appreciation
Rohan McWilliam President of the British Association of Victorian Studies The passing of Eric Hobsbawm is a huge loss to anyone who cares about the nineteenth century. For that matter, his passing is a huge loss to anyone who cares about the present moment and the future. Hobsbawm bequeathed to many of us the assumption that, if we wished to really probe what is at stake in current affairs, we had to understand the social and economic transformations that took
Read moreA Year on Social Media Part 2: Blogging
Not only have I started to use Twitter this year, but I’ve also started blogging. I enjoy blogging. Like Twitter, it has made me more connected to the academic world beyond institutional borders. This point was recently reinforced to me when I attended BAVS this year and on three separate occasions I had people stop me to talk about recent blog posts I had written. Having said the above, I am aware of my limitations. I don’t think I could
Read moreVibrators, the New Women and One Naughty Queen: Film Review of ‘Hysteria’
by Fern Riddell (King’s College, London) Since 2011, I have waited with bated breath for the release of Tanya Wexler’s new film Hysteria, which stars Rupert Everret as a sexually deviant, technologically gifted billionaire playboy – the Victorian Bruce Wayne of the sex aid industry – Maggie Gyllenhaal as a feisty, do-gooding, chest-beating early suffragette, and Hugh Dancy as a young, forward-thinking, if not always forward-looking, doctor with a great idea. With brilliant support from Jonathan Pryce, Felicity Jones, and
Read moreA Year on Social Media Part 1: Twitter
August bank holiday marked an important milestone for me. It was a year ago that my friends David and Jamie persuaded me that I needed to join Twitter. Of course, I knew about Twitter but was at the time rather dismissive of it. I thought only people like Stephen Fry and Sarah Brown tweeted. When my mother asked me ‘Why aren’t you on Twitter?’ I replied with smug confidence that ‘Twitter isn’t really used by people of my generation; it’s
Read moreJVC online needs YOU!
As a multi-authored blog, we’re always looking for your contributions to JVC online. We want our readers to see JVC online as a place to blog without having to commitment to writing regular posts, or feeling tied down to having your own blog. Interested in writing a post then email Lucie at l.m.matthew-jones@ljmu.ac.uk. How can you get involved? Fun Posts We’re always looking for reviews of films, TV and exhibitions (temporary/permanent). You can also let us know about any Victorian or
Read moreTeaching and Learning Showcase
Last week saw the final of our pedagogy posts uploaded on to JVC Online and I would like to thank everyone who participated. As I start my own PGCert at Liverpool John Moores University it was great to be involved in this showcase and to reflect more broadly on the innovative ways in which we are teaching nineteenth century studies. Judging from Facebook comments/likes and the Twitter response, it has also been popular with you, our readers! Just in case
Read moreTwitter in a Higher Education Classroom: An Assessment
Adeline Koh “Okay, everyone, now I want you to take out your phones or laptops and log on to Twitter.” My students gazed at me wide-eyed as I said those words last semester. One of them started laughing, saying, “Man, I never thought I’d hear a professor saying that.” Social media is often decried as one of society’s new ills. Many condemn social media for creating a “distracted” generation, one with gnat-sized attention spans, and make heartfelt appeals for a
Read morePunking the Victorians, Punking Pedagogy: Steampunk and Creative Assignments in the Composition Classroom
Dr. Kathryn Crowther (Georgia Perimeter College) As a Victorianist teaching primarily first-year English, I have to look for creative ways to bring my 19th-century interests into the classroom. A few semesters ago I was teaching freshman composition at Georgia Tech, and I began brainstorming for a way to design a course that combined Victorian texts with a focus on technology. I thought that 19th-century literature would be a hard sell in a class of engineers and programmers until conversations with
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